[HN Gopher] Thailand discovers nearly 15M tonnes of lithium
___________________________________________________________________
Thailand discovers nearly 15M tonnes of lithium
Author : amarant
Score : 311 points
Date : 2024-01-19 16:44 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.malaymail.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.malaymail.com)
| api wrote:
| Lithium is not actually that rare. We are just now spending a lot
| of effort to find more of it.
| mista2nith wrote:
| Yup - as always, "price will save us"
|
| You couldn't make money on lithium mining before, so no one
| bothered. Now, you can, so people are finding it everywhere.
|
| The main bottleneck in the USA (as always) is our insane
| permitting system, which punishes green projects and yet
| essentially doesn't exist for the fossil fuel industry. As a
| result, we're doing fun (bizzare) stuff like fracking for
| lithium in Arkansas, instead of just digging up Thacker Pass.
| surfingdino wrote:
| Apparently the UK has some too and the economics of it make
| production viable https://www.wired.co.uk/article/cornwall-
| lithium
| latchkey wrote:
| If Thailand has it, Myanmar, Laos and Cambodia probably do too.
|
| Edit: After checking on a map, probably Myanmar/Malaysia.
| kyawzazaw wrote:
| As someone from Myanmar, this piques my interest
| Rodmine wrote:
| It's the new oil, so I would be careful. Democracy and
| camaraderie and all those greater good things tend to come
| where the cheap resources are.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Deposits appear sufficiently distributed to not cause
| geopolitical conflicts [1]. This is not oil. Lithium is
| relatively abundant, and a mineral to be reused, not energy
| to be consumed once through. To keep it conflict free, we
| must continue to discover reserves and drive down the value
| of the commodity. No one goes to war over say, salt, in the
| 21st century (at least not yet!).
|
| [1] https://lithiumfuture.org/map.html
| latchkey wrote:
| It won't cause conflict because China will just come in
| and take it. Look at what they've done with the silkroads
| through Laos/Cambodia.
|
| "Here, take a 'free' hydrodam on your river and we will
| just take some land and electricity."
| TaylorAlexander wrote:
| Sounds like a trade to me. Predatory tho if the country
| is very poor and easily exploited. But as someone from a
| country that loves to invade others for resources I'd
| take predatory trading over military force any day.
| latchkey wrote:
| You didn't dive deep enough into the literal eco/social
| catastrophe that the silkroad is.
|
| It isn't military because neither of those two countries
| have any sort of way to defend themselves against China,
| but it might as well be military, because China.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belt_and_Road_Initiative
| iinnPP wrote:
| That's a whole lot better than the deal from the US,
| frankly.
| vlovich123 wrote:
| Can you clarify about reuse? At least as far as batteries
| go, right now once it's in a battery it gets used up &
| then ends up in the trash [2]. There's no efficient /
| cost-effective way to extract lithium from spent
| batteries for reuse in new batteries. We might in the
| future but it would require some scientific advances +
| expensive commercialization to scale up. Even if in the
| future we do develop a mechanism, it could remain very
| expensive & not be practical until mining costs have gone
| up enough. Similarly, all batteries that have been
| consumed until that point are likely irrecoverable as
| they're in the waste stream & finding & collecting those
| batteries is unlikely to ever be economical.
|
| [1] https://americanbatterytechnology.com/lithium-costs-
| a-lot-of...
|
| [2] https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/energy/a4241
| 7327/li...
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| https://www.forbes.com/sites/alanohnsman/2023/11/02/redwo
| od-...
|
| > In 2024, a quarter million aging electric vehicles will
| be ready for dismantling and recycling. That could be
| more than a 30% jump from 2023 -- and Redwood Materials,
| which aims to be the country's leading EV battery
| recycler, is ramping up its operations to prepare for the
| coming onslaught.
|
| > The company created by Tesla cofounder JB Straubel,
| which also makes components for new batteries from
| materials it recovers from old ones, expects some 250,000
| aging Tesla Model S sedans, Nissan Leaf hatchbacks,
| Toyota Priuses, Prius plug-ins and other hybrids, to turn
| up at dismantler lots in 2024 -- with more coming every
| year after. That's up from between 150,000 to 200,000
| this year. To ensure it gets as many of those old
| batteries as possible, it's launched a web portal to
| quickly give auto dismantlers purchase offers and
| schedule trucks to haul them away for recycling.
|
| https://www.reuters.com/markets/deals/redwood-inks-long-
| term... ("Redwood inks long-term EV battery materials
| supply deal with Toyota")
|
| Redwood Materials is currently operational, processing
| the waste stream. Ford and Volvo are also partners.
| They'll also accept EV packs that are damaged, defective
| or recalled (DDR) on an ad hoc basis if you open a ticket
| with their team.
|
| https://www.redwoodmaterials.com/auto-recyclers-battery-
| port...
|
| (have shipped them old Leaf and Tesla packs)
| danans wrote:
| > There's no efficient / cost-effective way to extract
| lithium from spent batteries for reuse in new batteries.
| We might in the future but it would require some
| scientific advances + expensive commercialization to
| scale up.
|
| It's already 95% efficient.
|
| No fundamental scientific advances are needed.
|
| It's already being scaled commercially.
|
| One example:
|
| https://li-cycle.com/
| dark_star wrote:
| Check out Jeffrey "JB" Straubel's new company, Redwood
| Materials[1][2]. They recycle lithium-ion batteries. He
| was Tesla's former chief technology officer.
|
| They are essentially a lithium mine that's using a very
| high quality ore, ground-up batteries.
|
| There are other companies doing this as well. [3]
|
| 1. https://www.redwoodmaterials.com/
|
| 2. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/battery-recycling-
| redwood-mater...
|
| 3. https://li-cycle.com/technology/
| kube-system wrote:
| Basically zero EV or HV batteries make it into the trash.
| They're recycled and already have a pretty good scrap
| value.
| vlovich123 wrote:
| I was thinking mostly about phones, laptops, power banks
| etc. I couldn't find any source online that expressed
| what percentage of lithium goes to different kinds of
| applications.
| NERD_ALERT wrote:
| The 2019 Bolivian political crisis [1] came right off the
| heels of Evo Morales negotiating lithium trade with
| Russia and China. Bolivia happens to have the largest
| lithium reserves of any nation.
|
| [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Bolivian_politic
| al_cris...
| m00x wrote:
| Good context, but not a geopolitical crisis, it was an
| internal civil conflict.
| NERD_ALERT wrote:
| The US/CIA has a long history of inciting coups, rigging
| elections, and funding far right terror organizations
| across Latin America for matters similar or lesser than
| this [1]. I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss this as
| unprovoked internal conflict. Especially given that only
| a year after this event, another election was held in
| which Luis Arce won in a landslide [2]. Luis Arce was
| importantly the finance minister for the Evo Morales
| administration [3]. There's no evidence that popular
| support had ever waned for the Movement for Socialism in
| Bolivia. Yet Jeanine Anez was able to win in 2019 and
| exile Evo Morales in an election that involved,
| "irregularities and serious human rights abuses by
| security forces," according to independent human rights
| organizations [4].
|
| [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involve
| ment_in...
|
| [2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Bolivian_general
| _electi...
|
| [3] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luis_Arce
|
| [4]
| https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/17/bolivia-
| govern...
| avgcorrection wrote:
| > Good context, but not a geopolitical crisis, it was an
| internal civil conflict.
|
| Do you think clandestine services pursue their goals by
| declaring war on countries?
| Izikiel43 wrote:
| This was because Evo was running again even when their
| constitution forbid it, basically every latin american
| president dream of eternal reelection.
| dragonelite wrote:
| But processing the lithium and making productive tools or
| products out if it isn't really distributed.
| lainga wrote:
| Countries can suffer Dutch disease just fine without ever
| seeing a single Marine.
| jldugger wrote:
| Well, it's not like Mynamar's democracy is particularly
| functional:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Myanmar_coup_d%27etat
| cbsmith wrote:
| In the sense of "we'll bring Democracy to your country",
| yes. ;-)
| deepsun wrote:
| Please do bring democracy to my country of birth, yes.
| And I mean it.
|
| Right now it pretty much is held occupied by brute force.
| 90% of population would welcome ANY change.
| avgcorrection wrote:
| The democracy is of the sarcastic kind by the way.
| deepsun wrote:
| So... Autocracy / tyranny are better?
| drak0n1c wrote:
| Myanmar has the most bountiful gem mines in the world. I
| visited in 2019 and there were many shops with piles of ruby,
| jade, sapphire, even amber. They're already pretty specialized
| in mining and have little qualms about razing mining areas so
| would be able to take quick advantage - if their civil conflict
| allows.
| kingkongjaffa wrote:
| > Myanmar has the most bountiful gem mines in the world.
|
| I assume that's hyperbole because I couldn't find a list of
| top producing countries that included Myanmar, do you have a
| link?
| seaal wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myanmar#Extractive_industries
|
| > Myanmar produces precious stones such as rubies,
| sapphires, pearls, and jade. Rubies are the biggest earner;
| 90% of the world's rubies come from the country, whose red
| stones are prized for their purity and hue.
|
| The article that is cited is from 2010, seems like overall
| gem production has decreased significantly since then.
|
| https://www.statista.com/statistics/1061659/myanmar-
| producti...
| crossroadsguy wrote:
| Well, it's definitely not ideal. But if history is anything
| to go by, then either they themselves take it and maybe by
| killing each other; or someone from outside will come and do
| the killing for them and then take it all and also sell some
| freedoms while they'd be at it.
| huytersd wrote:
| Anecdotal evidence can be misleading. I went to India and saw
| a literal pile, 7 ft high and maybe 10 ft in diameter of
| emeralds casually "stored" in a corner of a room but I don't
| think India produces all that many emeralds (it's primarily a
| cutting hub).
| whimsicalism wrote:
| No, I think Botswana or DRC does
| panzi wrote:
| Given where the province is I would only speculate for Myanmar
| and Malaysia.
| latchkey wrote:
| I admit that I didn't check closely enough on a map and now
| that I have, you're probably right about that.
| 1equalsequals1 wrote:
| Can't wait for the next genocide in the region, all in the name
| of freedom
| m00x wrote:
| Because there's not currently a genocide happening in the
| region?
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rohingya_genocide
| downrightmike wrote:
| Myanmar is in active civil war and under sanctions
| https://www.state.gov/burma-sanctions/ Even if they did find
| it, no one would be able to use it.
| buggythebug wrote:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkcJEvMcnEg
| setgree wrote:
| when valuable resources are scarce, people have an incentive to
| find and produce more of those resources. As Henry George put it:
| "Both the jayhawk and the man eat chickens, but the more
| jayhawks, the fewer chickens, while the more men, the more
| chickens" [0].
|
| [0]
| https://www.econlib.org/archives/2009/12/the_gist_of_jul.htm...
| Waterluvian wrote:
| Like with chickens, the Jayhawk should just learn to fuse
| hydrogen down to lithium.
|
| I think the analogy doesn't quite work. Humans produce chickens
| because we can do that. We find more lithium because we need
| it. Jayhawks can also evolve to get better at finding more
| chickens. And by their very nature, have been doing exactly
| that.
| wolverine876 wrote:
| Evolution is a bit slow. How many millenia will it take the
| Jayhawks to figure it out? Humans can increase chicken
| production this year or maybe next.
| Waterluvian wrote:
| For sure. That's what makes us exceptional.
|
| What I'm mainly pointing to is that we can't currently just
| mass produce lithium. We just go around looking for it
| more.
| setgree wrote:
| https://www.cato.org/economic-development-
| bulletin/julian-si...
|
| > when a particular resource becomes scarcer, its price
| increases, and that change incentivizes people to
| discover more of the resource, ration it, recycle it, or
| develop a substitute for it. As such, population growth
| and resource use do not automatically lead to higher
| commodity prices in the long run.
|
| So no, we can't mass produce lithium, but a high enough
| price might drive someone to discover a substitute.
| Gravityloss wrote:
| Sodium batteries are being researched as alternative to
| lithium. Same with other materials like cobalt, nickel,
| and graphite - there are battery versions that avoid
| those.
| jacobr1 wrote:
| It is more than that. We also invent new technologies.
| Searching for resources, refining them, do the same stuff
| more cost-effectively, extraction from different kinds of
| compositions and ores with processing methodologies,
| recycling, changing other elements of a system to require
| different amounts or mixtures in a final product are all
| different ways to "increase yield." On the scale of
| decades, collectively, this is very responsive to demand
| and why arguments about "only so much of resource X
| exists" are usually highly misleading.
| jlhawn wrote:
| that's an argument which works for capital goods (like
| livestock) but not for what Henry George considered to be
| natural opportunities of fixed supply like lithium ore (and
| land in general).
|
| Henry George, if he were still alive today, would probably say
| that valuable raw mineral deposits like this would be more
| likely to be discovered and brought into productive use earlier
| if they were taxed. The argument being that people would have
| no reason to speculate on a large untapped reserve of it. There
| would still be an incentive to bring it into production because
| the earned profit would be made through extraction, processing,
| and distribution of the material even if the higher holding
| cost of the land is factored in as a cost.
| brianbreslin wrote:
| Does this mean other elements like cobalt are becoming the bigger
| bottleneck in battery production?
|
| The US found a large lithium reserve in Nevada not long ago; or
| to be clear a large reserve that they can now more affordably
| extract. As another commenter said its not that rare, just wasn't
| cheap to extract before.
| cbg0 wrote:
| LFP batteries don't use cobalt.
| mbgerring wrote:
| Or nickel!
| xeromal wrote:
| Pretty sure the Salton Sea in california is gonna be a big
| lithium mine once it dries up
| pkaye wrote:
| There is also the lithium in the California Salton Sea which is
| further along in getting into production.
|
| https://www.energy.gov/eere/articles/us-department-energy-an...
| Throw84949 wrote:
| Lithium is quite common. Problem is minign it without totally
| destroying local environment!
| unglaublich wrote:
| Ironically, undestroyed local environment is getting quite
| rare.
| bregma wrote:
| Lithium is quite common in the ground. Mines are a dime a dozen
| all over the world. Mining it is the easy part. All processing
| is done by a handful of plants in China. It needs to be shipped
| to China, and the products need to be shipped from China to
| wherever they're used. Mining it is hard on the environment,
| yes, but it's just a drop in the bucket compared with the part
| no one talks about.
| riffic wrote:
| ah the same place that will imprison you for decades for having
| or expressing negative opinions about the royal family. cool,
| cool.
|
| https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=pastWeek&page=0&prefix=fal...
| greggsy wrote:
| Lese Majeste has nothing to do with this news. Every country
| has problems.
| genman wrote:
| I see this whataboutism a lot here.
|
| Yes, every country has its problems, BUT some of the
| countries have worse problems than others.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| at the same time Thailand is no Congo.
|
| the reason stuff like this gets downvoted is that it's
| pretty counterproductive to list a country's sins every
| single time an article remotely relevant is posted, to have
| it devolve in to a flame war
| linhns wrote:
| And make everyone take extra scrolls.
| genman wrote:
| Yes, indeed, it is not, but coincidentally today a person
| was imprisoned for 50 years for being a little critical
| about the king of Thailand. 50 years! A young man! It
| clearly foreshadows this otherwise very good news.
|
| Many people I know live considerable time of the year in
| Thailand and they are very supportive of the country but
| in my opinion this particular legislation clearly reminds
| that not everything is good there and there exists a
| considerable risk to personal freedom.
|
| I think that we should be vocal about this and not accept
| it as a "local peculiarity" - voicing disagreement
| actually can change the world to a better place as
| silently accepting a wrongdoing clearly does not.
|
| Similarly we should not close our eyes in case of US when
| it is gravitation toward less freedom. But this news is
| not about US.
| d7udsf wrote:
| Imagine that this article was about a lithium deposit found
| in the USA. Would you find it productive / relevant for me
| to say
|
| - Ah! That same country that is going back to the 50s in
| women's rights? - Ah! That some country that had the most
| gold medals in the last olympic?
|
| I'm guessing not. Why should it be acceptable to say
| something completely unrelated about Thailand? It's even
| worse if it's something negative.
|
| It would be fine if it were something relevant about
| Thailand (their mining legislation, for example)
| genman wrote:
| First, it has been not found in US and even if it had, it
| would have been not a sizable share of US economy, but
| for Thailand it would be.
|
| Second it was told most likely because it is the newest
| news about Thailand
| https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/19/world/asia/thailand-
| sente...
|
| Perhaps it has even become a defining feature of
| Thailand.
| mannyv wrote:
| Different political systems are different. Criticizing the CPP
| in China gets you a free trip to a reeducation camp, if you're
| rich enough (or Muslim enough).
|
| FYI, the Puritans of New England were the Taliban equivalents
| back in the day. They successfully rehabilitated their image,
| but in many ways haven't changed their stripes that much.
| EasyMark wrote:
| CCP?
|
| Sure they were violent when you tried to do something out of
| the norm, but there weren't even in the same order of
| magnitude compared to taliban or isis. I think you can't
| really lump them together. You would get banished from the
| community for the most part back in the day, taliban will
| just shoot you and your family in the face.
| edgyquant wrote:
| You could just say you know nothing about both the Taliban
| and Puritanical movements. It's be easier.
| maliker wrote:
| Looks like existing worldwide reserves are 26M tons [0], so this
| is a big find.
|
| [0]
| https://pubs.usgs.gov/periodicals/mcs2023/mcs2023-lithium.pd...
| SeanAnderson wrote:
| The second sentence of the article states, "The find means
| Thailand has the third largest lithium resources, behind
| Bolivia and Argentina, but it is not yet clear how much can be
| exploited commercially."
|
| If Thailand has 14M and there are two others with >14M then
| total known resources must be at least 42M tons, no?
| DougBTX wrote:
| Reserves and resources are different measures, same doc says
| 98M resources.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| Reserves are only defined when you also state a price. It's
| not a free number.
|
| Those people are probably using different prices, and not
| communicating them.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| What? These are denominated in tons, not dollars.
| Vecr wrote:
| Tons economically extractable at that price.
| adgjlsfhk1 wrote:
| The point is that reserves are only economically viable
| at a given price. At $0 there are 0 reserves because no
| one is willing to give you lithium. At $1 mil per kg,
| there is basically infinite reverses because you can do
| things like dig up the entire earth's crust and filter
| all the lithium out of it.
| solardev wrote:
| > At $1 mil per kg, there is basically infinite reverses
| because you can do things like dig up the entire earth's
| crust and filter all the lithium out of it.
|
| YC Summer 24?
| whimsicalism wrote:
| gotcha - thanks!
| alexwasserman wrote:
| That link says 98M tonnes towards the end, unless I'm
| misreading
| scythe wrote:
| Right, Thailand hasn't just opened 14Mt _reserves_ , rather
| _resources_. A reserve is a resource that you 're prepared to
| exploit. But see also:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39059076
| nilsherzig wrote:
| I think it's 89M t resources (under the ground?) and the
| other number is what they already mined
| Night_Thastus wrote:
| I think that true global reserves are much higher than what we
| know now.
|
| Before, Lithium was important, but not nearly in the quantities
| needed for EV's. Now that EV's have picked up, more people will
| be _looking_ for Lithium, and that will make all the
| difference.
| nordsieck wrote:
| > I think that true global reserves are much higher than what
| we know now.
|
| That was certainly true of oil. As reserves got depleted,
| progressively more advanced techniques allowed people to
| extract from more difficult locations.
| stouset wrote:
| At ever-increasing costs.
| baq wrote:
| And decreasing EROI.
|
| Maybe you meant that, but it's worth stating outright, as
| no amount of money can fix that.
| linhns wrote:
| It's very likely to go the way of oil. EV demand has slowed
| down recently (honestly I don't believe the world is ready
| for mass adoption and EVs themselves are not ready also), so
| we'll keep finding more and more and always beyond the
| consumption.
| feedsmgmt wrote:
| I think that is an odd opinion to have. The data shows
| otherwise: https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/electric-
| vehicles/chart...
| epistasis wrote:
| There are large propaganda channels masquerading as news
| outlets that push this idea continually as part of
| culture war. I would agree it's an odd opinion, but it is
| fairly common due to the ever present misinformation.
| thebruce87m wrote:
| Globally demand is up.
|
| https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-
| transportation/global...
|
| > LONDON, Dec 12 (Reuters) - Global sales of battery
| electric vehicles (BEV) and plug-in hybrids (PHEV) rose 20%
| versus a year ago as strong growth in North America and
| China offset lower sales in Europe, according to market
| research firm Rho Motion.
| kccqzy wrote:
| I hate the weasel words of "demands slowing down". It's
| always not clear what exactly is happening from this
| phrase. Is the production or sales going down year-over-
| year or quarter-over-quarter? Because that's what people
| think "demand slowing down" means.
|
| However what's actually happening is that demand is going
| up, but at a rate slower than before. Imagine that in 2022
| demand increased by 60% YoY but in 2023 demand only
| increased by 40% YoY (these are approximate figures). You
| are measuring the second derivative which is decreasing
| from a big positive value to a smaller positive value,
| which is not usually described by the word "slow".
| Intuitively "slow" means the second derivative has become
| negative.
| digging wrote:
| So the rate of change of demand is decreasing. Decreasing
| rate of change is the definition slowing down. Although I
| agree that most people probably misinterpret the phrase
| as you say. (It seems other replies have had that
| interpretation.)
| ajuc wrote:
| When you look at elements' abundance in Earth's crust lithium
| is about 50% more common than lead, but we mine 268 times
| more lead every year.
|
| We just weren't looking very hard to find lithium compared to
| lead till very recently.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abundance_of_elements_in_Earth.
| ..
| brianwawok wrote:
| Lithium is a pretty volatile chemical though. Does the 50%
| more common take into account the fact that some lithium
| blows up?
| HeatrayEnjoyer wrote:
| Does the ore blow up often?
| frabert wrote:
| Is lithium normally mined in its elemental form? If not,
| its volatility as an ore might be wildly less than in its
| metallic form
| adonovan wrote:
| That "blowing up" already happen billions of years ago.
| Lithium salts (ore) is what is left when lithium
| violently oxidizes.
| kadoban wrote:
| Lithium isn't found as a pure element, if that's what you
| mean. It's part of minerals bound up into stable
| molecules. So it won't blow up.
|
| It's very hard to find anything volatile in nature,
| pretty much by definition. Exceptions are things that are
| continually generated, eg you can find reactive oxygen in
| nature because plants keep making more. That or things
| that are only volatile once you purify or transform them
| in some way.
| legulere wrote:
| Minerals can be common but infeasible for extraction.
| Aluminum is one of the most common elements but we extract
| it just from bauxite
| Ringz wrote:
| Just like uranium.
| crote wrote:
| A big part of that is simply in the meaning of "reserve". For
| something to be counted in the reserve it has to be a)
| measured, and b) known to be economically viable to extract.
|
| There are plenty of known deposits of unknown size and
| quality. They are just by definition not included in the
| _reserve_. As demand grows those will be explored and
| included in the total count.
| topspin wrote:
| > so this is a big find
|
| Plus it's far away from the environment, so recovery will be
| uncomplicated.
| Hackbraten wrote:
| I see what you did there. [0]
|
| [0]: https://youtu.be/3m5qxZm_JqM
| onthecanposting wrote:
| Let's hope this isn't another BRE-X. The press release seems to
| imply these are inferred or probable reserves. Great news if
| it's true.
| mrinterweb wrote:
| There was a very large (20-40M tons) deposit recently
| discovered on the border of Oregon and Nevada.
| https://www.nevadacurrent.com/2023/09/22/report-of-giant-lit...
| Tagbert wrote:
| that one is near the surface and consists of clay deposits so
| extraction and refining should be much easier than many other
| deposits, such as in Australia.
| genman wrote:
| The confusion comes from wrong vocabulary. There are two
| different words in use: resources and reserves. Resources is
| what ever there is in (or in some cases on) the ground.
| Reserves is what can be viably extracted.
|
| World lithium resources are close to 100M tons, but usable
| part, reserves, is about 1/4 of it.
|
| Notice how it is also stated in the article: "We are trying to
| find out how much can we use from the resources we found. It
| takes time," Rudklao told The Nation.
|
| So they don't know how big are the reserves.
| tim333 wrote:
| Reserves are very different from resources though. In mining
| jargon the resource is how much you think is out there, a
| reserve is ore that you drilled, analysed, mapped out and shown
| to be profitable extractable, so a lot less.
|
| Because turning resources into reserves is expensive only a
| limited amount is done before it is mined.
| cmcaleer wrote:
| Important line from the article: "...but it is not yet clear
| how much can be exploited commercially".
|
| This likely doesn't mean a straightforward +15M tons to the
| world's supply.
| genman wrote:
| There is important lesson to learn from here.
|
| Everybody who claims that there is not enough some mineral for
| something must consider the following. First in every moment in
| time there are certain number of mineral resources - these are
| known deposits that are not all necessarily accessible
| economically, but some of them are - these are reserves.
|
| If the demand for something increases then also the price will
| increase, making more of the resources available as usable
| reserves at the new price point. At the same time it increases
| the incentives to find even more new resources.
|
| More over, if there is certain amount of mineral already in
| circulation then it may suddenly become economically viable to
| recycle it, limiting the demand for new resources.
|
| What is important to observe instead is if the increase in
| production can follow the increase in demand and if the resources
| grow at such speed that the growth can continue.
|
| https://www.sustainabilitybynumbers.com/p/lithium-electric-v...
| gregwebs wrote:
| That's a good article. The issue is not finding another tonne
| of lithium, the issue is cranking up production. The article
| says 4-5 years minimum to build a mine, but sometimes it takes
| 10 years.
|
| So there is a supply issue- it is the supply produced by mines.
| We still could be in for more lithium prices shocks in the
| future as happened during the pandemic because the mining
| production can't elastically expand or contract (financing can
| make shutting down a non-option) as fast as demand. Building
| out a recycling program is something should be able to be done
| more quickly than building out a mine but there may still be
| issues if we don't design for recycling from the beginning.
|
| > The world doesn't currently have the production capacity in
| mining operations to scale to this level. And, the problem is
| that the minimum time to build lithium mines is four to five
| years. They can be even longer - especially the lithium
| extracted from brine because it takes a long time to pump the
| saltwater out, before waiting for it to evaporate.
|
| > Countries have already invested in some increases in
| capacity, but we will need much more if we're to keep up with
| demand.
|
| > This is a short-term challenge, and one that is typical of a
| fast-moving market. We're playing catch-up. But, it's a problem
| that we can't afford: it could slow the decline in battery
| prices, and limit the number of EVs that companies can produce.
|
| > If we want to move the EV transition forward, we need to mine
| more lithium. And we need to do it quickly.
| wnevets wrote:
| How more stories do we need about finding lithium and "rare"
| earth metals being found before people realize they're not all
| that rare and we can stop reporting on it as if it's special?
| adtac wrote:
| Rare earth metals aren't actually rare. It's a misnomer. Some
| of them are pretty common. It's just that they're hard to
| extract and refine.
| whynotmaybe wrote:
| Lithium is so 'not' rare that you can find it in the geothermal
| water in... Belgium.
|
| https://www.thinkgeoenergy.com/geothermal-developer-hita-see...
| Accujack wrote:
| Or under the Salton Sea.
| EasyMark wrote:
| Rare is not what you think it is in that context. Wikipedia
| article would be instructive as to why
| mullingitover wrote:
| Technically every non-landlocked county has a near-infinite
| supply of lithium. It's the extraction costs that are the
| problem.
| WrongAssumption wrote:
| Reserves take extraction cost into account.
| laweijfmvo wrote:
| I'm assuming it's not a giant 15M ton chunk of (highly reactive)
| metal in the ground, but rather they took a bucket of dirt,
| analyzed it, and extrapolated how much lithium is available in
| the ground. My question is, how much "earth" do they need to dig
| up and refine to extract this amount of lithium?
| s0rce wrote:
| this site says 0.4% so they would need to extract 3.5B tons of
| rock
|
| https://thethaiger.com/news/national/thai-lithium-deposits-o...
| herdrick wrote:
| Normally an announcement like this would be based on a program
| of drilling. But yes there would be a lot of interpolation and
| I think some extrapolation.
| oblio wrote:
| Oil is the standard example. I forgot what the exact peak oil
| production years were supposed to be, but they went something
| like this:
|
| In 1880 peak oil was expected to be 1910. In 1910 it was 1940. In
| 1940 it became 1970. Etc.
|
| Basically we kept finding more and more as technology and
| practical prospecting experience advanced.
| AdamH12113 wrote:
| US oil production did, in fact, peak in 1970 and declined for
| decades afterward. Production only started to increase again
| about 15 years ago with the widespread use of hydraulic
| fracturing.
|
| https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=M...
|
| EDIT: To be clear, I am responding to a specific, narrow idea
| implied by the parent comment: that there was a prediction of
| peak oil in 1970, and that that prediction failed. I wanted to
| clarify the history. I know that global oil production
| continued to increase.
| dwighttk wrote:
| Production is not the same as existence
| stouset wrote:
| Every year global we discover fewer additional oil reserves
| than what we are currently burning.
|
| Not that it matters. If we burn what we've already
| discovered, we'll already be completely fucked from a
| greenhouse gas perspective.
| m00x wrote:
| We were heading into an ice age, which would be just as
| bad for humans. The issue is that we built a bunch of
| things that depend on the current climate, but the
| climate has been changing for a long time and will keep
| changing. We need to adapt to it or find a way to adapt
| it.
|
| The holocene is an incredibly small period compared to
| the age of the Earth. Nature doesn't gaf, it'll cycle in
| and out and we'll have to adapt.
| flir wrote:
| It's not the direction, it's the velocity.
| sheepdestroyer wrote:
| Not taking the extreme and unprecedented rate of
| temperature change into account is either ignorance or
| disingenuity.
|
| https://xkcd.com/1732/
|
| It's probable that very few species will be able to adapt
| to such an abrupt change.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Adaptation happens when it's forced to happen.
| 3000000001 wrote:
| Yes, but there is always the second half of "adapt or
| die" to consider
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| This literally doesn't mean anything
| hughesjj wrote:
| They also happen when they're not forced to
| (competition), and sometimes they don't happen when
| they're forced to (extinction).
| avar wrote:
| The rate at which the temperature is changing is probably
| at historic highs, but both the current temperature and
| atmospheric CO2 concentrations are close to historic
| lows.
|
| See [1], that xkcd is picking a really biased starting
| point by using the last ice age as a baseline. Ice ages
| themselves being extreme abnormalities from the general
| historic trend.
|
| 1. https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Global-
| Temperature-and-C...
| hatthew wrote:
| That xkcd is not demonstrating the amount of warming, it
| is demonstrating the velocity of warming. Historic
| temperatures on a time scale of millions of years are
| completely irrelevant to the current discussion of
| climate change, unless you think we have a chance to
| evolve into dinosaurs in the next few centuries (/s).
| aiauthoritydev wrote:
| This is a very common misconception. Production is all that
| matters and existence is completely irrelevant
| independently. Production factors in existence and future
| expected existence. For example if any oil rich nation
| thinks oil going to run out they will hoard it for future
| so they can make money.
|
| But some get pedantic and ask "But isnt number of Oil
| molecules in earth finite?"
|
| Such pedantism can be easily blowm away by responding with
| pedantism. Oil molecules on "earth" might be finite but in
| universe they are infinite. Even if the molecules are
| finite atoms of Carbon and Hydrogen are vastly infinite in
| universe. We already know how to merge these atoms to form
| hydrocarbons.
|
| These arguments then get into the saner territory of "but
| isnt it too expensive to bring water from Jupiter and turn
| it into Oil on moon and then ship it to earth?", yes it is
| compared to fracking but fracking was considered too
| expensive compared to drilling which was considered too
| expensive compared to using mined coal etc.
|
| Ignore existence and focus on "production". As far as
| production is concerned we are not going to run out of oil
| ever. Unless we stop "needing" it.
| earthling8118 wrote:
| While the resources are out there it's very feasible that
| we could become locked into a scenario where it is out of
| reach. I don't particularly care for letting the cost
| stop us from taking it from outside Earth, but the
| prerequisite for doing so is having enough energy
| available to accomplish the goal. Which is a path we
| could easily close off for ourselves.
| FrustratedMonky wrote:
| Yes. Think people have impression we are energy independent
| and Scot-free because of fracking.
|
| Really, fracking was a second chance. A reprieve.
|
| We'll just be behind 8-ball again if we don't take this
| reprieve and grow some other energy source.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| I do not really understand why we are obsessed with energy
| independence. It only matters if we were to ban exports
| which is an absurd thing to do.
| rectang wrote:
| Strong US domestic energy production disempowers petro-
| state dictatorships such as Russia, Venezuela, Saudi
| Arabia etc. whose interests and values are not aligned
| with ours.
| Aerbil313 wrote:
| Burning and bombing their countries down to the ground
| works pretty well too.
| rectang wrote:
| The sharp ramp up of US oil production happened under the
| "all of the above" energy policy of Obama, who famously
| opposed that burning and bombing.
|
| Energy independence is vastly preferable to waging war,
| and may be worth making some environmental tradeoffs for
| -- even if we would like to see cleaner alternatives to
| fracking in the long run.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| > Energy independence is vastly preferable to waging war,
| and may be worth making some environmental tradeoffs
|
| Environmental collapse will lead to wars, so this
| statement is self-contradicting.
|
| In fact the sooner we run out of oil, the better - high
| oil prices mean that any alternative will get huge
| investment. France built out nuclear due to an oil price
| shock.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| We really are in a jingoistic moment right now.
| markerz wrote:
| Isn't energy independence more about other countries
| exports? From the perspective of Germany, their reliance
| on Russian oil caused a high spike in cost of energy
| during the current Ukraine invasion. For the US, we don't
| really want to be at the whim of OPEC. The 1973 Oil
| Crisis is a historical example of OPEC taking a religious
| and political stance and using their oil exports to
| coerce the US against Israel. Another way of looking at
| it is that oil production has largely been an effective
| monopoly for a long time by authoritarian states (many
| OPEC, China, Russia), many that are politically unstable
| (Venezuela). There are only a few oil rich countries and
| many of them are allied with each other so there isn't
| strong competition or incentive to keep prices
| competitive. Many of them view the US negatively.
| ethbr1 wrote:
| Exactly. Large parts of the economy _require_ oil as
| feedstock or energy.
|
| Parts that cannot be down for more than a week, or bad
| things happen, and which by virtual of volume have
| limited storage capacity (at normal consumption rates).
|
| Consequently, US energy independence is about creating a
| credible detachment of the US from global market oil
| prices, such that countries thinking of using an oil
| embargo to pressure the US... don't.
|
| In reality, oil embargos obviously impose immediate and
| intermediate term costs on the exporters as well, so
| doing a painful thing that the US might be able to blunt
| anyway becomes less attractive.
| ZoomerCretin wrote:
| Germany's plight is entirely owed to their own political
| malfeasance in shutting down their nuclear power plants.
| With them, they would have managed just fine without
| Russian oil and natural gas.
| edgyquant wrote:
| There is still a bulk of our modern economy which relies
| on combustion engines and oil. You are out of touch with
| this reality if you think Nuclear is a quick replacement
| for anything but basic power generation. We are
| generations away from electrifying everything.
| megaman821 wrote:
| Can you explain that thought more? The bulk of oil and
| natural gas don't go to electricity generation. How would
| more electricity generation help?
| FrustratedMonky wrote:
| But that was kind of bad luck in timing.
|
| They started shutting down nuclear, to make switch to
| wind/solar, before Russia invaded. (or at least being
| very trusting of Russian supply, so that is error in
| hindsight).
|
| You could make argument that the switch to wind/solar
| should have been more gradual, or with more ability to
| roll back. But don't think it is a good argument to not
| switch to wind/solar. Just about how to do it.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| Nah, it was actual stupidity.
|
| The same wind turbine in the scotland produces 3 to five
| times more power than in Germany
|
| The same solar panel produces 3 times more power in
| Spanish winter than in German winter.
|
| This is basic information available to anyone
|
| https://globalwindatlas.info/
|
| https://globalsolaratlas.info/
|
| But fine, you decided to do energy transition
| inefficiently.
|
| At least don't switch of nuclear while you are still
| relying on fossil fuels!
| FrustratedMonky wrote:
| Yes. I agree. That is better way to put it. Sure, switch
| to wind/solar. But at least mothball nuclear so they
| could be ramped back up (i'm not sure if that is possible
| with nuclear like with other power plants).
|
| But yes, have a better fall back position.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| No, it's about what the US exports - because the US
| produces more oil than it needs domestically. We will
| always be at the 'whim of OPEC' as long as we are in a
| market-based system because OPECs actions impact global
| oil supplies.
| FrustratedMonky wrote:
| 'market-based' is the key here. Without competition there
| is no market.
|
| In the 70's when the US was NOT producing enough.
|
| Then OPEC had a 'monopoly' or at least an outsized
| influence. A large enough % of the market that they could
| dominate the price.
|
| Right now we are NOT at the 'whim' because we can produce
| more if we need it. IF we stopped, then we would return
| to being at their 'whim'.
|
| Solar, Wind, anything, is all very important for National
| Security. See Germany.
| jon_richards wrote:
| Soft power.
|
| "European countries are estimated to have spent
| additional 792 billion euros in the last year just on the
| status quo system to protect consumers from the effects
| of the energy crisis introduced by the Russian invasion
| into Ukraine"
|
| Honestly I think building solar and wind farms in Europe
| would do more for America's military power than more
| tanks.
| pi-e-sigma wrote:
| You have a flaw in your reasoning. More solar and wind
| farms in Europe make it more independent from _both_
| Russia and the US.
| politician wrote:
| The EU is dependent on the US for nuclear deterrence, so
| the dependency relationship will continue even after they
| choose to use less imported US LNG.
|
| That's probably a long time from now though, as they are
| expanding LNG regasification terminals (6 projects that
| I'm aware of) since the pipelines from Russia became
| unavailable.
| spacebanana7 wrote:
| Export bans of politically sensitive commodities are not
| that uncommon.
|
| For example, India banned onion exports this year [1] &
| the US has restricted oil exports before. [2]
|
| Moreover, without officially banning exports a similar
| result can be achieved by mixing exports taxes with
| consumption subsidies.
|
| If international oil prices got too high, like over $200,
| the political pressure for an oil export ban /
| restriction than made domestic prices $50-$100 would be
| hard for congress to tolerate.
|
| [1] https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/asia-
| feels-sting-...
|
| [2] https://ballotpedia.org/Crude_oil_export_ban#:~:text=
| The%20c....
| rayiner wrote:
| Why would you want to be dependent on other countries if
| you didn't have to be?
| whimsicalism wrote:
| Because comparative advantage means that we all get
| richer collectively? Like - the basic principle driving
| better living standards over the last 80 years?
| rayiner wrote:
| Define "better living standards." Obviously has been
| great for third world countries. But folks in the west
| don't seem to happy about the situation. I don't think
| the widespread availability of cheap Chinese crap offsets
| the downside of hollowing out the industrial base and
| non-college jobs.
| FrustratedMonky wrote:
| Ah. I see.
|
| You are going back to old Adam Smith.
|
| Let places/people that can make things more efficiently,
| do them.
|
| Example: Don't give subsidies to car companies in
| countries that aren't good at making cars, it is
| inefficient. Better to focus on what you are good at.
|
| There are exceptions:
|
| National Security. See Energy, Semi-conductors.
|
| or
|
| To protect an industry while it grows, gets up to speed.
| Japan didn't become industrial power house out of
| nothing, they were very protectionist. Now they are
| dominant, but they aren't dominant because they let
| anybody at all come in and compete. They subsidized and
| protected their industry until they could stand on their
| own.
| edgyquant wrote:
| This is because you've been living a very comfortable
| life with no real foreign threats thanks to US hegemony
| and the globalization it allowed. Due to other countries
| growing and wanting to have a say, this can't be expected
| to continue going forward and so we have to think about
| things from a strategic perspective and not from a purely
| economic one.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| We have more than enough significant allied countries in
| the Americas that we never have to worry about energy
| security ever again - in the sense of literally getting
| enough electricity to meet domestic demand.
|
| If it is about getting low price energy, then integration
| with the global system is unavoidable, no matter how many
| domestic export bans you enact, etc. - you will be
| impacted by global energy prices.
| FrustratedMonky wrote:
| "independence" means we don't have to buy energy from the
| outside. Send money to someone, so they give us Energy.
| It is super important.
|
| Think of it like this. How many oil producers do we have
| a problem with? That are dictators, at war, or generally
| bad. Every time we buy gas, we give them money. We send
| trillions of dollars to our enemies.
|
| It is such an overwhelming National Security issue, that
| I'm frankly surprised Republicans fought renewable energy
| for so long. Oil isn't going to last forever. We should
| have been throwing resources at our own internal energy
| R&D. .
| cinntaile wrote:
| Wind and solar are pretty nice and rapidly growing.
| rsanek wrote:
| check out worldwide production. except for the 80s, it's been
| consistently increasing for at least 120 years.
| https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/oil-production-by-
| country...
| moffkalast wrote:
| Great news for climate change.
| kfrzcode wrote:
| Productions; what about reserves?
| hinkley wrote:
| World peak oil production was expected to happen in the late
| 1980's, but what happened then was new subterranean imaging
| techniques to find oil, horizontal drilling to get at tricky
| oil, and new electrolytes (zeolytes) to refine crude, basically
| doubled the amount of _petroleum_ we could possibly produce,
| and increasing the amount of crude we could get to if we
| wanted.
|
| That said, even with process efficiency improvements like
| electrolytic cracking, the number of useful Calories we extract
| per Calorie of input has declined over time. More and more of
| the fossil fuels we produce are going into producing the next
| unit of fuel, which is a little harder to retrieve than the
| ones from last month.
| yieldcrv wrote:
| yes but this happens in every commodity and serves to the
| earlier point
|
| what happens is that because the price goes up and the
| margins potentially increase, more investment is tolerable
| for more expensive extraction methods
| dang wrote:
| (We detached this subthread from
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39058847. Nothing wrong
| with it but it's a bit of a tangent.)
| scythe wrote:
| Apparently this has been disputed:
|
| https://www.bangkokpost.com/business/general/2727119/thai-li...
|
| >But Jessada Denduangboripant, another lecturer with the same
| faculty, used his Facebook page to offer a reality check. The
| 14.8 million tonnes, he wrote, represents the pegmatite igneous
| rocks that contains around 0.45% of lithium.
|
| This is a cumulative find in an ongoing exploration project that
| has identified multiple sites with various grades of lithium-
| bearing rock:
|
| https://www.chemanalyst.com/NewsAndDeals/NewsDetails/thailan...
|
| The true quantity of lithium resources in Thailand will probably
| continue to be adjusted over the coming year, but it probably
| hasn't crossed the 10M mark.
| rkunde wrote:
| What are the chances of battery tech advancing beyond lithium
| before extraction of these deposit can even begin at scale?
| mrinterweb wrote:
| I've been wondering the same. Battery tech seems like there are
| new breakthroughs weekly. Investing billions in
| extraction/production seems like a pretty big gamble if by the
| time you're operational your tech is outdated. Still, even if
| there is a game changing battery tech breakthrough, it would
| take years before it could make it to mass production and
| adoption.
| Gravityloss wrote:
| Hmm so 300 million cars with 50 kg lithium in each. That's about
| four years worth of global car production. Would make a dent in
| oil usage certainly!
| kwhitefoot wrote:
| An EV doesn't have 50 kg of lithium. The 70 kWh battery in my
| Tesla S has about 12 kg of lithium.
| Gravityloss wrote:
| Hmm the the first source I found said 60 kg but now found
| others saying a lot less like only 6 kg.
|
| https://electrek.co/2016/11/01/breakdown-raw-materials-
| tesla...
|
| https://elements.visualcapitalist.com/the-key-minerals-in-
| an...
| Aloisius wrote:
| The 63 kg number is lithium carbonate equivalent, not
| elemental lithium.
|
| It originated from a Goldman report and they used it
| because lithium carbonate is what's traded.
| stetrain wrote:
| And long term the supply a new lithium needed per year will be
| less than that needed to meet that year's global car
| production. Most of the metals used in EV batteries are
| recyclable, they aren't consumed permanently by putting them in
| a battery.
| saos wrote:
| Their govt should be all over that before they get leeched
| _heimdall wrote:
| One thing I didn't see mentioned here, lithium brine extraction
| has some pretty serious environmental downsides. Finding all that
| lithium will be a win if/when its extracted and usable, actually
| extracting it is a different story.
| epistasis wrote:
| I hear people complain about this, but they never place it in
| context with the damage from, say, iron or copper mining.
|
| I've done lots of web searches, read lots of articles, and
| there's never definitive measures of harm or comparisons to
| what current mining does.
|
| In a standard f150, how much damage is done from mining? How
| much damage comes from oil extraction compared to the one-time
| cost to extract lithium?
| _heimdall wrote:
| Oh for sure, I have no idea how similar comparisons would
| shake out. I can say, though, that such comparisons pretty
| easily lead to tragedy of the commons problems.
|
| If we want to decrease our impact on the environment we need
| to stop using so much energy and so many resources, period.
| Chasing the next miracle cure, in this case lithium batteries
| for energy storage, we can easily run down that path picking
| up all the ecological damage of lithium mining and new
| manufacturing only to find that there are new problems and
| we're not much better off, we simply have different problems
| and a similar level if environmental damage as if had we
| stayed on the original path.
|
| Now that doesn't mean I don't have hope for alternative
| energies or think we should decrease dependence on
| nonrenewable sources. I do like the promise of wind, solar,
| nuclear. etc and also think we should be killing off non-
| renewables as quickly as possible. I just hope we don't
| attempt to treat environmental impact as a zero sum game,
| signing off on more damage based on not exceeding the damage
| caused by current systems. I also hope we don't stick to a
| consistent growth of 2-3% in annual energy consumption, its
| no coincidence that number matches GDP targets and its
| unsustainable.
| _heimdall wrote:
| I got a but ranty there. To get back on topic, lithium isn't
| a one-time cost. Batteries wear out and have to be replaced.
| If we assume the batteries would outlive the average vehicle,
| we're committing to vehicles having an expected life of say
| 10 years. Meaning every 10 years it has to be destroyed,
| recycled, and replaced.
|
| I have a 1988 pickup that still runs great. I don't drive it
| regularly as my hybrid is much better on fuel, but the damage
| done from producing that truck was paid for decades ago and
| I'd be shocked if the cost of a tank or two of gas per month
| comes anywhere near the ecological impact of a producing a
| new, electric F-150 that is marginally useful for towing or
| hauling (my only reason for needing a pickup).
| tiffanyh wrote:
| Dumb question: how do they measure/know it's "15M tonnes".
|
| Meaning, it's not like they just found one big 15M tonne solid
| bar of lithium.
| great_psy wrote:
| I think there's different ways: - take random samples from the
| area and statistically come up with that value - put a
| radar/sonar/ xray etc in a hole and get an outline of how big
| the deposit is.
|
| I did not work in this field explicitly, but worked on Gaussian
| processes which were first used as a way to aggregate data like
| this from multiple sources to minimize the number of drillings
| required to find oil.
| specialist wrote:
| Aside: The global trade community should insist countries set up
| sovereign wealth funds wrt exports tied to resource extraction.
|
| Like Norway did (FTW) and Australia didn't (ruefully).
| brianmcc wrote:
| Highly recommend this if you've not heard of it yet, goes into
| detail about lithium and some other vital raw materials :
|
| https://www.amazon.co.uk/Material-World-Substantial-Story-Fu...
|
| "Sand, salt, iron, copper, oil and lithium. They built our world,
| and they will transform our future."
| darth_avocado wrote:
| This was discovered in Phang Nga. It is full of natural beauty
| and has some of the most recognizable tourist spots. I wonder how
| those would be affected.
| alpineidyll3 wrote:
| Man... Can we just leave it there. Can we forget this happened?
| Thailand is too nice to sacrifice for batteries.
| outlore wrote:
| The cultural significance of the resource wars in the middle east
| has been immense. I wonder if the modern imperial powers will
| wage new wars for resources in east Asia in the future.
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